Senate Concurrent Resolution 17 (PDF), introduced in the Louisiana Senate on May 29, 2018, would, if passed, have commended a former state senator "on his support and endorsement of teaching creationism in public schools."

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is that facts are not all powerful. As a scientist, I love facts. A paleontologist tells me that there is a 365-million-year-old fishlike thing with eight fingers that is an ancient cousin to tetrapods? Amazing! Where can we find more like it?

NCSE is pleased to announce the winners of the Friend of Darwin award for 2018: Tiffany Adrain, the collections manager at the University of Iowa Paleontology Repository and a supporter of NCSE’s Science Booster Clubs in Iowa, and Robert Stephens, a cell and molecular biologist who proposed the idea of Darwin Day in 1993 and cofounded the Darwin Day Program to coordinate and encourage the celebrations of the great naturalist's life and work.

NCSE conferred its Friend of Darwin award for 2018 upon two people—Robert Stephens and Tiffany Adrain—who have significantly contributed to efforts to increase the public’s understanding and appreciation of evolutionary biology in informal educational settings.

Each year, NCSE awards its Friend of the Planet award to individuals or organizations who have significantly contributed to efforts to increase the public’s understanding and appreciation of the science of climate change. This year’s winners have worked tirelessly to give the public the tools it needs to understand what scientists know about climate change and how they know it.